The Mother's Mistake: A totally gripping psychological thriller

by Ruth Heald

  ‘Lily?’ I say.

  I want her blessing. I want her to let me restart my life. To live. To be. To care for another baby.

  I listen intently for a reply but all I can hear is the sound of the water washing over the stones.

  I can feel so many things. Bracing wind, icy water, bitter air. But I can’t feel her.

  She’s gone.

  I realise then that there’s no point. Because I’m not whole without Lily.

  I can’t go on like this. I can’t live.

  Forty-Six

  Stephanie holds Olivia above the water. She starts to whine as her small body shivers violently. The rain is soaking through her clothes.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Give her back.’

  But Stephanie isn’t listening. She wades towards the reeds.

  ‘Is this where they found her?’ she asks.

  I realise that she doesn’t know what I know. She wasn’t here. She doesn’t know where her daughter was pulled from the river. She doesn’t know how hard the paramedics tried to resuscitate her.

  ‘A little further along,’ I say.

  ‘Did you see her? Did you see her here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did she look?’

  I think of how Lily’s spirit had already left her. ‘She looked at peace.’

  Stephanie nods, and pulls apart the reeds, looking at the murky water.

  ‘This is where she took her last breath.’

  ‘They tried to save her, Stephanie. They did mouth-to-mouth, chest compressions. But she was already gone.’

  She turns and for a moment I think she’s going to wade into the river with Olivia.

  But she only looks into the reeds and whispers softly. ‘Goodbye, Lily.’

  Forty-Seven

  I reach out and try to take Olivia from her, but Stephanie pulls away, wading deeper into the water.

  ‘Olivia’s not Lily,’ I say. ‘She can never replace her.’

  Stephanie nods and I think for a moment that she might come back to the riverbank. But she turns away.

  ‘Give her back to me,’ I say, softly. ‘Please.’

  ‘There’s nothing for us here,’ Stephanie says, wading deeper. ‘Lily always wanted a sister. We can all be together now.’

  She’s going to drown them both. She can’t.

  A flush of heat rises through me, despite the bitter cold, and I think I’m going to be sick.

  I feel an urgent need to act, to save my daughter, but I’m frozen to the spot, terrified that any sudden movement will force Stephanie further into the river.

  ‘Stephanie. Stop.’ The words stumble out through the tears.

  But she steps further in.

  I jump in beside her, the bitterly cold water shocking my system. Even in the shallows, the current is stronger than it looks. I can see Stephanie’s finding it difficult to stay on her feet, her waterlogged jeans dragging her down.

  I daren’t step closer.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please give her back to me.’

  ‘You don’t deserve her.’

  A wave of pain washes over me. She’s right.

  ‘You don’t love her. You don’t care about her the way I cared about Lily.’

  ‘Don’t drown her,’ I whisper. ‘Please don’t drown her.’

  I try and grab at Olivia but Stephanie takes a step further back and stumbles in the water. My heart stops as Olivia shifts in her arms and the current threatens to take her, but Stephanie recovers, keeping her grip on her.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she shouts through tears. ‘You took everything I loved from me. You took my daughter. You stole my future. Lily will never grow up, go to university, find a job. Why should you have that when I can’t?’

  I hear myself scream as Stephanie struggles to maintain her footing. Soon the current will be too strong for her and Olivia will be swept away.

  Olivia is crying now. So is Stephanie. I can hear her sobs wracking through her body.

  ‘Stephanie, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ she whispers. ‘My fault my daughter died. I shouldn’t have told you anything.’

  Stephanie chokes on her tears.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I should never have––’

  But she’s not listening. She’s lost in the past, staring down into the murky water that’s now up to her chest.

  ‘There’s no point. There’s nothing to live for.’ Her voice is so soft I can barely hear her.

  I reach my hand out to her, ice-cold water lapping around my thighs.

  ‘There is,’ I say. ‘There is.’ I remember when I was in her place, ready to give up. I felt so overwhelmed by guilt as I stood on top of the multi-storey car park, staring at the tiny people below going about their day to day lives, as I prepared to jump.

  ‘Why should I believe you? You comforted me before, remember. You told me everything would be all right. You told me to open up to you, to confide in you. And then you betrayed me. You printed it in the paper.’

  My head pounds. She’s right. It is my fault. It is. I set up the fake helpline and befriended her. I printed that story. It’s my fault her daughter died. Now it’s my fault my daughter is in danger.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat. It’s all I have, but the words sound empty. ‘I haven’t been able to live with myself.’

  Stephanie laughs bitterly.

  ‘But you have though, haven’t you? You won a prize for my story, you carried on as normal. And then you had a daughter.’ Her eyes flash with anger.

  ‘I didn’t carry on as normal, Stephanie.’ My head pounds harder, the rush of the river inside me. ‘I couldn’t. I had a breakdown and left the newspaper. I tried to kill myself. I was where you are now. I wanted to die. After your story was published in the paper, after what happened, I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face what I’d done.’

  I remember how guilty I’d felt. Empty inside. I couldn’t cope. I drank more and more. Friends fell by the wayside as I spiralled out of control. I couldn’t sleep at night, the images of Stephanie’s drowned daughter haunting me. I ran away. I found myself on the roof of a car park, ready to jump.

  ‘Why didn’t you just do it?’ she asks bitterly. ‘I wish you had died. Why did you have to live and have a daughter?’

  ‘I wanted to end it all. You have no idea how much.’ I remember how strong the desire was, how intense. It seemed like the only option.

  But Matt had come and stopped me. If only I could do the same for Stephanie.

  Stephanie’s demeanour changes. She seems intent now, concentrating on my words. She takes a step towards me.

  ‘When?’ she asks. ‘When did you try to kill yourself?’

  ‘Three years ago. A couple of months after your daughter’s death.’

  Stephanie is silent as she stares at me, her face blotchy from her tears, her hair wet from the drizzling rain.

  ‘You were sorry?’

  ‘I hated myself for what I’d done. I couldn’t forgive myself.’

  She pauses for a moment, considering this as I shiver violently in the freezing water.

  Then she says quietly, ‘Chris killed her, not you.’

  I have told myself that a thousand times, tried to believe it is true. But I know that if I hadn’t run the story, if I hadn’t told Stephanie to leave him, then things might have been different. I have to take responsibility.

  ‘I shouldn’t have published the story.’

  But Stephanie is immersed in her own thoughts. ‘He was the one who took her here. He was the one who drowned her. I thought it was my fault. I’d told you our secrets. I’d tried to leave him. I betrayed him. I knew what he was like. I knew his temper. I just never thought he’d hurt Lily.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Stephanie. You couldn’t have known what he’d do next.’

  She looks at me. ‘You couldn’t have known either.’

  I nod, tears streaming down my face, remembering her daughter being pulled f
rom the water. I’ll never forgive myself for the way I behaved, for what I did. But she’s right. I wasn’t the one who killed Lily. Chris did.

  Stephanie looks down at Olivia in her arms. ‘Do you love her?’ she asks.

  And suddenly it’s there, the surge of love I’ve always wanted. I am here, I think. I am here to rescue my daughter. I do care. I’m her mother.

  ‘Yes,’ I answer truthfully.

  Stephanie hands Olivia over and I wrap her up in my arms. Relief floods me.

  She’s cold and shivery and her hair sticks to her tiny face. I hug her close to me, warming her up, kissing her again and again.

  Stephanie must be even colder, the winter river soaking through her clothes.

  ‘Come back,’ I say. ‘Please.’

  She shakes her head. ‘There’s nothing for me here. I’ll never have what you have.’

  She's right. Whatever life I have with Olivia, she will never have it with Lily. She’s gone. I swallow, ashamed of my good fortune when I caused Stephanie so much suffering.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Come back. There are people who can help you.’

  Olivia shivers in my arms. I need to get out of the water and get Olivia inside, into the warm.

  In the distance, I hear sirens.

  ‘I need to get Olivia inside, Stephanie. She’s cold.’

  She looks at Olivia, as if realising for the first time what she’d been about to do. ‘I didn’t want to hurt her,’ she says. ‘I just wanted to say goodbye.’

  ‘Lily’s gone, Stephanie. Please come in. Please.’

  Stephanie stares back at the river, at the reeds.

  In the silence, the quiet rush of the water seems deafening.

  ‘She’s gone,’ she says.

  Stephanie turns away and takes a step deeper in the river. She pushes off the riverbed, into the central current.

  ‘No!’

  There’s a split second when she floats, before the current takes her, her body tossing and turning, rolling downstream. She doesn’t make a sound.

  I cry out, stumbling through the heavy water to the bank. I put Olivia down on the riverside and clamber up after her.

  I must get to Stephanie, I must save her. She doesn’t deserve to die.

  The silence is suddenly filled with noise.

  Sirens. Paramedics. Police.

  It brings it all back.

  The rain intensifies as the wind picks up.

  I rush over to the police, nearly slipping on the sodden mud, holding my baby close as I rub her back over and over to warm her up. I tell them that Stephanie has been swept away, that she’s further down the river. They mobilise immediately, desperate to save her.

  I feel a hand on my arm and turn to see Miriam.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Stephanie’s gone. She… she went down the river.’

  ‘They’ll do everything they can to rescue her.’

  ‘I know.’ I also know that sometimes it’s not enough. I remember the look in Stephanie’s eyes. The desperation for her lost daughter. She didn’t want to live without her. I hope, whatever happens, that she finds peace.

  Miriam wraps her arms around Olivia and me and then the paramedics put us in an ambulance. As it departs, I squeeze my daughter tight, reflecting on everything. I had Olivia because I felt a gap in my life, an emptiness. When she was born, I couldn’t love her because I felt I didn’t deserve her. Not after everything I did. I was punishing myself.

  But she is innocent of all of this. It’s not about whether or not I deserve her. It’s about whether she deserves me. And she does. She deserves a mother who’s fully present, a mother who loves her.

  I promise her that this will be a fresh start for us.

  I hold her close to me. Her eyes meet mine. I need to give myself and my daughter a chance.

  I do deserve Olivia. I do deserve to be a mother.

  Forty-Eight

  Epilogue

  3 months later

  I stare up at the cottage, its limestone walls so full with promise and potential. The home I thought we’d be happy in.

  Ruth’s sold the cottage to a family; two parents, two children. She’s already recruited the mother for the tennis club. ‘A nice family,’ she said. I imagine them looking round, deciding which colour they’ll paint each room, exclaiming at the huge garden, picturing their kids running free. The sale has made Ruth finish sorting through Pamela’s things, and now the rooms are beginning to clear, the cottage seems lighter and airier.

  Ruth isn’t pleased that Matt and I are back together. I think she’d still prefer him to be with Sarah, although there’s no chance of that. They were never having an affair. We’re pretty sure it was Stephanie who planted the scarf. And I think “Graham”, who I supposedly left the nightclub with, was just another one of Stephanie’s creations. But even though my STI tests came back negative, I’ll never know for sure what happened that night and that scares me. I’ve stopped drinking again. This time I hope it’s for good.

  Matt has finally taken my side against his mother and told her she has to accept me or she’ll see less of her granddaughter. That’s the last thing Ruth wants. She might not like me, but she loves Olivia. She wanted us to rent somewhere close by in the local area, but both Matt and I are ready to leave.

  We’re moving to Oxford, between Matt’s surgery and the magazine I’m doing freelance work for in London. The magazine focuses on social issues and has a small, but growing, readership. I won’t win any awards this way, but I will get to expose the issues that matter to me, to help people. And that’s enough. When I get to Oxford, the first person I’m going to call is Miriam. She rushed to the river to be by my side as soon as I called. She’s forgiven me, despite everything. I know I can trust her and I want us to be friends again. I’ve missed her so much.

  To my surprise, Sarah’s become a friend too. We’ve both made mistakes, and I think we understand each other. She even babysits for us occasionally.

  I feel awful about what happened to Stephanie. Despite everything, I wanted her to have a second chance. But her body was never found and she was declared dead. Sometimes a sudden noise in the cottage would make me jump and I’d be convinced she was back, watching me. But when I turned around there was no one there. I think I’m just used to that feeling now, constantly being watched. Once we’re away from the village, I’ll feel safer.

  I hold Olivia tightly in my arms, comforting her as she whines. I feel so differently about her now. When she giggles, my heart lifts. When she cries, my heart aches with hers. It’s like we’re one being, intimately connected. The strength of my feelings has taken me by surprise. I hadn’t been able to feel them before. I was numb from everything that happened. But now I’m free. Free to start over again.

  Matt puts the final box in the car, and goes around the back to strap Olivia in.

  He turns to me, and we look up at the looming cottage together.

  ‘Are you going to miss it?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Me neither.’

  He embraces me, kissing me full on the lips. It feels like we’re defying the house, defying Ruth.

  ‘I can’t wait to start again,’ I say.

  ‘A fresh start,’ he replies. ‘A chance to put the past behind us.’

  We get into the car and drive away from the cottage for the final time.

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  A Letter from Ruth

  Thank you for choosing to read The Mother’s Mistake. If you enjoyed it, I’d be very grateful if you
could write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes a huge difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.

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  I wrote The Mother’s Mistake when I was on maternity leave. It struck me how motherhood seemed to go hand in hand with both fear and guilt. Fear that something will happen to your child and guilt that you aren’t living up to society’s ideals of the ‘perfect mother’. I think these feelings affect all of us from time to time.

  But for many others it’s far worse. Over 10 per cent of women suffer from postnatal depression after the birth of a child, and while I was very fortunate not to be affected myself, I saw other confident, capable women struggle with the condition. In my novel, I wanted to explore the universal feelings of guilt and fear for a mother who’s already on the edge.

  I put Claire in a situation where she was isolated physically and mentally, and the people she thought she could depend on (Matt, her mother-in-law) continuously let her down. Lack of sleep can make anyone question what’s real and Claire’s never sure if the threat is on the outside or if it’s really her own fragile mental health. She feels intense guilt because of her past mistake and believes she doesn’t deserve her own child.

  I hope you could relate to Claire’s journey and that you also felt for Stephanie, who had to live through every mother’s worst nightmare. Both women paid a high price for their mistakes. Although Stephanie hated Claire, they were both mothers who tried their best to care for their daughters. And they both couldn’t forgive themselves for what happened to Stephanie’s daughter, living with an ongoing sense of guilt and shame.

  I’m always happy to hear from my readers – you can get in touch on my Facebook page, through Twitter, Goodreads or my website.